


orange

by so_soft_boy



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Dissociation, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, ryuji is such a good boy and akira doesn't know how to accept help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_soft_boy/pseuds/so_soft_boy
Summary: Akira is happiest when he is pleasing other people.
Relationships: Iwai Munehisa/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 7
Kudos: 73





	orange

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: the characters here are not happy or healthy, except maybe ryuji

Someone is calling Akira’s phone. It’s buzzing against the floor like a nest of wasps, loud enough that there’s no objection to him drawing back to fish around for it, answering on the third ring.

“Hey, what do you need me for?” A ghost speaks dead words with his mouth and is met with confusion. 

“Akira? This is your number, right?” Ryuji’s voice is loud and clear, even compressed and distorted through the phone. 

“Yeah, it is,” Akira says, settling back into the vocal range he’s been using for… However long it’s been now. He’d used the tone and words for answering a call from his father. English, sweetly soft and ready to either fulfil or escape from a responsibility as smoothly as possible. “Sorry, old habit.”

“Geez! For a sec I thought some poor tourist chick had nabbed your phone, that woulda been bad for everybody.” He’s laughing, they’re both laughing, it’s a funny little slip-up some friends are having a laugh about. The body on the bed behind him turns.

“Anyway, you busy tonight? There’s a flick I think you might like playing in Shibuya, it’s got-”

Ryuji keeps talking, knows that Akira will pipe up when he has an answer, enjoys filling the space that he leaves with his silence. Akira doesn’t like movies. He has to sit mostly still in a room with a screen designed to ruin his darkvision, surrounded by strangers, with a quiz at the end to prove he absorbed any of the pasty ninety-odd minutes. It’s miserable. Someone invites him to one every other week or so, because that’s what people his age do, they go to the movies with each other. He accepts every invitation. 

“I’ve got something going on right now,” he says, ignoring how his stomach turns. Ignoring how Ryuji stops mid-phrase to make sure he isn’t being talked over. Ignoring how the warm hand on his back makes it feel like his soul is crawling out of his skin. “Later this week though, definitely.”

“Don’t forget! I’ll grab the snacks this time.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“C’mon, you’re spotting me all the time. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” There’s not much point in arguing with him when he’s made up his mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hang on, one other thing-”

“Yeah?” 

“You okay, man?”

Akira is absolutely still.

There might be a world in which he tells Ryuji where he is and picks his clothes off the floor and puts them back on with more care than they were removed with, a world where he says how he feels and goes home.

Morgana has said that persona-users can’t form palaces. Akira likes to think if he had one, it would be impenetrable. 

“Yeah? I’m fine, dude. Meet up at the usual place tomorrow?” Ryuji whoops “you know it!” and then the phone is silent. 

“Can see why you compared him to a dog. A goldie, right?”

“Mhmm,” Akira hums in response, shutting his phone off before setting it back down, turning back towards the warmth he’d pulled away from. Arms wrap back around him and he melts into it, hands wandering. The tattoos are a different texture than the rest of the other’s skin. When he speaks, the vibrations resound in both their chests.

“You’re free to go, you know.”

“Why would I? You know I’d rather be here.”

He pushes himself up, plants a gentle kiss on Iwai’s knitted brow. His hands have already settled on Akira’s waist again, just where he likes them to be, nails grazing just below his ribs to make him squirm. He wants to be here. He wants this to be happening. Iwai doesn’t ask again, and Akira is grateful for it. It only interrupts the warm static of his mind, wrapping around him like a blanket, the most secure he feels these days. This might not be what happiness is to other people, but it’s good for him, it’s the closest to happiness he can get. This is nice. This is good. He’s happy. 

Why would he be anything but okay?


End file.
